Holding out for a Hero
by Elemnestra Aethelflaeda
Summary: The Doctor and Donna accidentally land in London. A weirdly quiet, seemingly uninhabited London. Finding someone has taken advantage of Prime Minister Saxon's death to take over the United Kingdom, they team up with Torchwood 3 to set everything to rights
1. Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing that anyone recognises.**_

******A/N: Yes, this is a rewrite of this fic. It may or may not get any further than the original, but...whatever. We live in hope, and yes, I may well be referring to myself in the plural there. Ah well.**

_**Chapter One**_

The streets of London were deserted. Not a single person was out of their home. Well, at least for the most part; it might be more true to say that not a single _sane_ person had left the comfortable confines of their home. Gracie shivered, getting spooked, and wishing the weak sun was brighter. Old litter and torn down posters blew down the street in the cold wind.

_It looks__ like a scene from an old horror movie_, Gracie thought, clutching her black coat tighter around her against the chill. _One where the innocent victim is about to disappear..._

Spinning around, she checked the street behind her. No one was there. _Stop scaring yourself_, she scolded, wishing it was that easy.

But it wasn't just the emptiness of the street that was disturbing. It was the silence. The complete absence of any ordinary, everyday sounds. No cars, trucks or buses. No one was shouting or shrieking or singing; there were no children crying, or laughing, or playing. No phones ringing. No radios, or televisions. Just the wind, and Gracie's boots echoing down the street.

It was this complete, utter quiet that got to her sometimes. But then, the noise, when there was noise, generally wasn't much of an improvement. _Unnamed voices screaming, shouting, shrieking, crying, wailing, fingers reaching out, clawing, tearing, reaching, trying to escape, trying, failing, screaming..._She shivered again, and walked faster, peering cautiously down each side alley she came to, passing in her bid to get somewhere safer than the open streets. Peeping down them, just in case. In case someone was waiting for her. In case _They_ were waiting. Watching. Following her.

She spun around again, checking. Knowing she looked suspicious as she did so, but then doing it anyway. Reassuring herself, not able to help herself, making herself feel just that little bit better. She had long ago reasoned that suspicious looked better than dead, but being inconspicuous was far better than either of those conditions. But Gracie was stuck solid in paranoia these days, in twitchy, nerve-wracking anxiety, and so she looked suspicious, and saw everyone else – even an empty street, apparently – as suspicious, too.

But no one wanted to be seen these days. No one knew what happened when They took you away. But it certainly wasn't for a cup of tea and a biscuit. People could guess what happened, all too easily, with a little help from unfortunately overactive imaginations. Because not one person ever came back. And _no one_ wanted to be taken. Everyone was scared out of their minds. No one knew what They wanted, or why They should decide to take over _now_?

No one knew where to run to, where to go, who to trust, what to do. How to survive. People had figured out, by now, roughly how to avoid Them. Blend in, keep your head down, and most importantly, _do as you were told_. And even then, even when you did everything They said...

Everything had changed. No one could quite take it in, at first. No one could quite understand what had happened to their nice, neat, normal world. Maybe no one had wanted to understand. Had wanted to believe they could just close their eyes, and then it would all go away, whisked away in the wind like a bad dream.

But whatever the reason, the nightmare hadn't gone away. It had happened so fast. So, so fast. Overnight. That might have been why it hadn't felt real at first, why no one except the crackpots and conspiracy theorists (justified at last) had really believed that anything had changed until people started dying. People had been dying for almost a whole year now, more or less, give or take, as far as anyone could figure it. A whole year since They had taken over. And in that year, the city had run down. And like clockwork, it needed someone to wind it up again. But no one had.

There were rumours, though. Stories, told in secret, in the dark. In the dark, where They couldn't hear. Stories of an underground resistance. Someone on the people's side. Working against Them, doing what they could to save lives. Trying to save all of them, to save their future.

Rumours, that's all they were. Remarkably persistent rumours, cropping up again and again however many times they died down, but still only rumours, whispers, stories, never repeated in the light where the listener could see who was telling them. But they were rumours that Gracie listened to, and rumours that she knew to be true. Because she worked for them. For the Resistance. Only as a secretary, or whatever the equivalent of that was these days, only taking down notes, recording information, but still the fact, the knowledge, remained. She worked for them. She knew they were real. And so she had hope.

There were other rumours too, though. These were stories of hope, but coming through and from fear. Coming from Them, twisted and warped by Their touch. The official story from Them was of a man, an alien. It was the story of someone who was a danger to everyone, who was a danger to anyone who came in contact with him. Whom it was Their duty to catch, before disaster occurred and brought ruin to the world. They said he called himself 'The Doctor', and travelled in what looked like a '50s Public Police Call Box (but the people shouldn't be deceived by its appearance, because it contained greater threat than any they had encountered previously). If anyone saw him or his blue police box, or even heard any mention of him, or knew him previously, they _must_ tell Them. And if They found anyone had been keeping information from Them, whether the information was current or ancient...well, it wouldn't go well for anyone, and They had become long practised at the use of both subtle and blatant threats.

But people still wondered. People thought well, if this Doctor, whoever he is or isn't, is against Them, and so are we, that would mean he's on our side, wouldn't it? Doesn't it? Shouldn't it? Refrains of _the enemy of my enemy is my friend _drifted through London's collective consciousness.

Gracie didn't really know about any of that, but she did know something which hinted to her that the Doctor might, might be good for everyone. She knew the Resistance were subtly asking for news of the Doctor to be brought to them instead, far more quietly than They were. So he might be on our side, if the Resistance want him brought to their own base.

_And that's where I'm going now_, she thought, calling herself back to the present. _And I don't want to be followed. They don't know where the base is...yet. And I don't want Them finding out any time soon, and I don't want Them finding out from me. I don't want Them to figure out where it is because I'm too careless. I can't wander anymore, not even in my own mind._

Gracie checked the street behind her once more, and then sped up to reach the corner, confident she was alone but not wanting to linger a moment longer than was absolutely needed. As she walked around the corner, trying to ignore the bricks stained dark with soot, a strange groaning noise shattered the silence. Gracie froze, not daring to move. Scared, terrified, petrified. Abnormally loud in the quiet, the noise came and went. Sounding like engines revving up then stopping, then revving up again. Revving, stopping, revving, stopping. It was too loud, much too loud for Gracie's nerves, and far too loud not to have been noticed by other people. And then the noise stopped completely.

Slowly unfreezing, Gracie cautiously crept back down the street which she had come from, towards the location of the noise. Next to the alley from which the sounds had come, she paused, gathering courage. She rounded the corner, praying to any god she could think of as she went. _Please don't let it be Them. Please, _please_ don't let it be Them._

_**TBC...**_


	2. Chapter 2

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing that anyone recognises.**_

_**Chapter **__**Two**_

'So, where to next?' the Doctor grinned as he walked around the console of the TARDIS, clearly having fun.

'Oh, I don't know. Why ask me? It's not like I know any planets or anything,' Donna smiled back at his somewhat contagious enthusiasm as she walked into the room.

'Come on, just choose somewhere. Anywhere! Any_when_. It's not that hard.'

'Yeah, says the guy who knows every inch of the universe,' Donna replied, laughing.

'No I don't.'

'Yes you do.'

'No I don't.'

'Yes you do.'

'No I – that's it! We'll go to somewhere I haven't been before! Now... that's gonna be hard... where haven't I- woah!'

'Doctor! What did you do?' Donna screeched at him, as the TARDIS jolted alarmingly.

Her outrage at the Doctor may have been a just little unwarranted – not that Donna really cared – given that the alien hadn't touched _any_thing on the console, let alone anything to cause the sudden movement.

'Nothing, I -' he suddenly stopped, as the TARDIS began to make the grinding noise usually preceding her landing somewhere.

'_Doctor!_'

'No, no, no, what are you doing? I didn't say to land; I didn't say to even go anywhere! Wait, wait...' trailing off, the Doctor rushed around the console frantically, flicking switches, pushing buttons, trying to figure out what his ship was doing.

Then, with one final jerk that sent the pair staggering just as they had begun to relax, the TARDIS stopped. She'd landed.

'Doctor?' Donna asked, sounding extremely suspicious of him. '_What_ exactly just happened?'

'Ah...well. Yes, it was obviously a fault in the...er...yeah... Well, let's go see where we are, shall we?' the Doctor said, swinging open the doors and stepping out into an alleyway.

'Doctor!' Donna protested, pausing in the TARDIS doors. 'You have no idea what that was, do you?' she challenged him.

'Nup! Not a clue!'

Donna groaned. 'Oh, for crying out loud, Doctor, you are absolutely _impossible_...'

Reluctantly she followed him out, shaking her head. Once outside, she looked around, trying to figure where the Doctor had landed them _this_ time. And when he had managed to get them.

'It looks like... London. But it's so... quiet,' she said, uncertainly.

'Yeah, it does... Now, let's go find out what the date is! And where we are, I s'pose. Look, there's someone up there!' he said, pointing up to the mouth of the alley. 'Let's go ask her.'

Before Donna could say anything, he had set off, walking up the alley to the distant figure. She sighed, and hurried after him. There was no point in getting left behind, and it wasn't as though he was going to stop and wait for her. Forget Time Lord, he was an overgrown puppy, honestly.

* * *

Seeing two people walking towards her out of the shadows, Gracie stopped again.

_It doesn't look like Them... They generally make a big deal of Their presence... and it doesn't seem as though they're armed, either._

But then again, it didn't seem, from the perspective of a stranger, as though Gracie was armed either, but she knew very well that she had a gun in her coat pocket. She knew that particular fact extremely well, her hand being practically melded to it, she was holding on to it so tightly. So tightly, she doubted she'd even be able to use it, if she had to. _I've never really used it before, not on a real person..._ That was all the time for thinking she had as the person in front, the man, came up to her. The back of her mind ventured one last thought: _he's not too bad looking_... before she quickly shut it up.

'Hello!' the skinny man said brightly. 'I'm -' he began, before being cut off.

'No! Don't tell me your names.' Gracie interrupted him. 'It's safer.'

'Uh, okay. I guess that takes out the next bit of the conversation too.' As Gracie looked confused, he added 'The "what's your name" part. Never mind. I know this'll sound crazy, but I was wondering. Where are we, and what year is it?' He paused, and added 'It's a bet.'

'And why is it so quiet?' the woman butted in. 'It's really weird.'

Gracie was shocked. Didn't these two know anything about, well, anything that had been happening recently? Maybe they'd hit their heads... _Yeah, sure, that's just a _great_ explanation, isn't it. Simply wonderful. Explains absolutely everything_, half her mind said sarcastically. _Oh, shut up_. The other half ignored both the voice and the flimsy explanation. There were other things to worry about.

In any case, she figured, she'd better tell about what had happened... before they went out and got themselves in deep trouble. And she'd like to think that she still had some of the manners she'd been born with.

'Well...you're in London... and it's around a year after Mr Saxon died...That's when it all started really, although I've heard some people say that they think it could have started even before that. But no one's really sure. I mean, no one knows when it started, but we're not really sure if it's been a year, either.'

'Why?'

'Why?' Gracie repeated, a little incredulous at their ignorance. 'Because no one knows the date anymore, not properly. And we're not even entirely sure when it started, or why, or, hell, how it started. Why no one knew about it until it happened... But you get the idea. Like I said, lots of people have guessed when it all began, but I've only heard a few theories which sound possible.'

'When wh-' the red-head began.

'When what started? Well...when Mr Saxon died, the country was in a bit of a mess. Not much, but it _is_ a fairly unusual thing to happen, having your prime minister shot by his own wife, right after he has the President – of _America_, for heavens' sake_ –_ killed. Then some organisation that no one had ever heard of took over, saying they could protect us from...from aliens.' Gracie paused, watching the man's expression change to shocked, to suspicious, to wary, the emotions written plain as day on his face.

She went on 'Most people thought it was a joke. After all, it's not every day a secret organisation dedicated to fighting aliens decides to pop up from underneath you,' she said, as though trying to joke. She didn't laugh. 'But then people started disappearing. No one could tell at first. They were just there one day and not there the next. But then...everyone figured it out, almost at once. The people disappearing were all people who...disagreed with Them in one way or another, who questioned their motives, their actions, their right, their authority...' She trailed off, and the man jumped in with a question.

'Who? Who's the organisation?' He sounded like he already knew the answer.

Gracie checked behind her again, making doubly sure no one was there, before answering. 'Torchwood.'

_**TBC...**_


	3. Chapter 3

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing that anyone recognises.**_

_**Chapter **__**Three**_

_Gracie checked behind her again, making doubly sure no one was there, before answering. 'Torchwood.'_

About to go on, Gracie paused, seeing the strange look on the odd man's face. Outright shock, with a bit of anger, resignation, and...was that hurt?...mixed in. All were quickly blocked out as he outwardly regained control of his emotions, but his eyes retained that peculiar look of hurt.

_Well, he's clearly heard of them before...But where? He doesn't know what's happening here – but no one had ever heard of Th-_Torchwood _before all this..._

Recalling herself back to the present, she began talking again, noting to herself in passing that, surprisingly, the red-head woman hadn't started talking again yet.

'Whether or not everyone – anyone – accepted it at first...well, the conspiracy theorists jumped at it, the internet was full of it...but no one really wanted to actually believe it was happening, whatever their eyes happened to be telling them. Especially after that thing with Mr Saxon going crazy, and then getting shot by his wife, of all people.'

At this point, the man muttered something Gracie didn't quite hear.

'Pardon?'

'Oh, nothing. Please, go on.'

'Well, there's not too much more, really,' Gracie said, unsure of where to go next with her story. And oh, did she wish it was just a story. 'They basically control England now, definitely London, and probably a good part of the rest of the United Kingdom, too. Of course, I'm not sure about that bit – we haven't been getting any communication from, well, anywhere, actually, since they appeared. But...I don't think anywhere would have been as badly hit as here. That's not saying much, though.

'People tried to escape into the countryside, at first, just to get away from the city, like it was the war or something. It worked, at first, but then They – Torchwood – realised they were losing people, and no one got out after that. The roads have all been blocked off, all the ones leading outside, and...well, it makes getting food harder. I dunno,' Gracie said, and paused, thinking. 'Actually, I'm not entirely sure how we _are_ still getting food. Or how we manage to get a hold of anything that hasn't just been looted, for that matter. No one really...does anything, except what we're told. We just...run and hide.'

'What is it that Torchwood want?' the man interjected, something in his tone suggesting that he was asking out of more than mild curiosity.

'I don't know,' Gracie almost whispered. 'I wish I did, I...it would make more sense, then. Or I hope all this would make more sense if I knew. That it was happening for a _reason_. But all I've heard is that the organisation are here to defend us from the alien threat, in whatever form that threat make take, and whatever sacrifices are needed in that defence,' she said, her tone making it clear that it was a quote from somewhere. 'But we seem to be the only people around here that get sacrificed. And even if aliens do exist, how is this _helping_?' Gracie continued, waving her left hand about at the street, and implying the entire city in that sweep of her hand. 'How is this _any better_? We're basically a city full of hostages, to get everyone else to do what They say. And if they don't, then They'll...convince people otherwise.' She stopped, tired and drained all of a sudden after her outburst of speech.

She didn't talk very much these days, normally. Not nearly as much as she used to. But...maybe she'd been quiet too long; all the feelings bottled up inside, waiting to get out and be spoken to the first person that asked. Gracie was probably lucky that it had been a pair of crazy amnesiac people (or something) who had been the ones to ask. In her silence, the other woman spoke up, more quietly, gently.

'What happens?'

Gracie looked up at the woman, and met her eyes; she hadn't even noticed that she'd been looking away.

'It changes. They...round up a group of people, random strangers, and take them away. Or they just cordon off a section of London, and by the time we're allowed back in... People say that Torchwood has some sort of special gas, which just...leaves everyone dead. And then people go back and live there anyway, in the places where dead people used to live. You'd think there would be some unconscious taboo, or something, to live there, to, to _repopulate_ it, but there's just...not. It's like...no one cares what happened there, because you can't change that it happened, but there's empty houses there for the taking, and that can be changed. Abandoned shelter, and rations, and belongings, and you take it all, and try to forget _why_ it was all abandoned.

'But not everyone dies, I think. Once you can go back in, back where they sectioned it off, it's just...bodies, mostly. Not always. Sometimes it's just empty. Sometimes they're alive, with sores all over them. It's...awful. It...I'm sorry,' Gracie said, suddenly aware that her voice was starting to crack, that her throat was starting to close up.

She hadn't let herself think about what was happening, not for months on end. And now, here she was talking to a couple of strangers, and letting herself collapse. _Pull yourself together, girl_, she thought, unconsciously imitating her mother's tone. It worked, and she stood straighter, pulling her hand out of her coat pocket to run her fingers through her hair, tugging them through the various accumulated knots without much success. _You should take care of yourself better, girl_, her mother's voice scolded, off-topic. _Keep up appearances_.

'I'm sorry,' she repeated. 'I have to go, I...goodbye.'

She turned, and set off back down the street, nearly breaking out into a run. Not quite, because she just managed to keep her thin veneer of calm, but it was nevertheless very nearly a full-on sprint. But she didn't want the pair behind her to follow where she was going, and she didn't want to hang around them any longer, either. Maybe she should have answered more questions, as the polite thing to do, but she'd become wary of questions. Any questions. Whoever the asker was.

And those two...those two were really weird. And weird could be dangerous, these days. Better safe than sorry. Better to be needlessly scared and acting foolishly than dead.

* * *

Gracie's two weird strangers stood still in the quiet alley, not speaking. Neither of them wanted to believe what they had just been told had happened to London. Or maybe, apparently, it had even happened to the entirety of the United Kingdom. But whole-of-the-UK or not, London-alone or not, the concept was still far too large for Donna to take in properly. Sure, she'd seen all sorts of fantastical things, and had believed in them, in whatever crazy circumstances she found herself in, readily enough. But this was _home_. And while one was away travelling,_ home_ was always meant to stay the same, wasn't it?

And now she had come home again – admittedly by accident – no more than several months after she had left, it seemed, which would have been incredible had it been the Doctor's navigating that had brought them here, and everything was different. And everything – everything that Donna navigated by, in her mental map (which was rapidly growing exponentially more complicated) – had been changed. She was a stranger in her own country, and she hadn't been away very long at all, really, and she _didn't know_ how this situation had become so bad, so fast. And she didn't know what was happening.

Donna was all but entirely lost, in a place that _should have been her home_, and she didn't like the feeling.

And the Doctor seemed to be entirely too quiet, not running about hyperactively trying to fix everything. He was sidetracked, Donna assumed, by the news. Which, when she thought about it, was a little odd. More than a little odd, considering that he appeared to come up against this sort of situation most days of his life, and should be far more used to it than Donna was by now. Should he really be _this_ disturbed by information that yet another country had fallen to tyranny? (And Donna thought this trying very hard not to think about which country it was that had fallen, this time) And he seemed to know who these Torchwood people were. And that seemed to be...not a good thing, judging by his non-fidgeting.

But Donna couldn't worry about everyone at once. She may be able to multitask with the best of them, but there was a _limit_. And worrying about someone she didn't fully understand on the best of days was getting very close to that limit. The Doctor, she would worry about next. Right now...right now, she had something – someone – else to worry about. More than one someone.

Donna Noble hadn't moved for many minutes, lost in thought, staring back down the street to where the informative, plainly nervous woman had disappeared. The Doctor, hands in pockets, was doing the same, not seeing the street at all. Finally Donna stirred, coming to a decision, pushed her hair out of her face, and turned to look at her companion.

'I want to go home, Doctor.'

He just nodded. 'Okay.'

**__****TBC...**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I own nothing anyone recognises.**

_**Chapter Four**_

The pair of them had, more or less unanimously and without prior discussion, decided to leave the TARDIS where she was and head out on foot, in favour of inconspicuousness. Too much hopping about in space using advanced technology would probably end up being noticed by someone. Donna had subsequently been relieved, after this decision, to discover that the alley in which the TARDIS had unpredictably decided to land was within a short distance of her home. Donna emphatically did not desire to be walking across the entirety of the city of London, particularly given the distinct lack of both public transport and pedestrians.

But it was with a slight sense of surrealism that Donna walked the streets of London to reach her home, the Doctor trudging not-_quite_-gloomily along a step or so behind her. The silence was getting to her, and every now and then she'd come out with a random comment, just to break it. The Doctor wasn't helping much, and he was being even less helpful in not telling her what exactly it was that was bothering him so much. In fact, when she had brought it up, part-way into their trek, he had denied anything being the matter.

She hadn't believed him.

Something was clearly the matter with him, and it was something that woman had said (Donna experienced a brief urge to shake the answer out of somebody, whether it be that woman or the Doctor that underwent the shaking). He wasn't acting normal (and it disturbed her, just a little, that she might know what _normal_ was for him) and that was not a good omen. Not-acting-normal forewarned of danger just as much as acting-normal did, and was probably even less safe.

It wasn't that she had expected him to disagree that they troop off to visit her home, but there was still something off...and he was talking again, so that was something, because a quiet Doctor was disconcerting, but it wasn't much of an improvement. It wasn't as though he was actually _telling _her anything. Like always, he knew just how to talk for enormous amounts of time, and _say _absolutely nothing at all. A personality trait of his that could sometimes be amusing, but more often than not annoyed the heck out of her; mostly because of, she admitted, the times he did it to keep things from her.

And right at this moment, he seemed to be back in that part-angst-ridden, part-ominous-and-foreboding mood of his (having apparently temporarily given up on his volubility, which she had only been listening to with half an ear anyway). Donna gave a – taking care that it should be only a safely mental one, though – snort.

And people said that _females_ had problems with indecipherable emotions and mood swings. Obviously they'd never met spaceboy, here.

* * *

Gracie headed down the side-street, trying not to think too much about the strangers she had neglected. She didn't _need_ any more worries. Hands deep in the pockets of her coat, her head down, she hurried on her way, wrapping her coat around her. That way, she could be sure that its contents were secure, because she didn't know what she'd do if she lost them. Or if someone else found them.

She turned a corner, neatly avoiding the piled, stinking refuse at its base.

But it was all fine. And as long as no one caught her, it would remain fine, and she'd stay safe until the next worry-fraught time she was sent out into the city.

Gracie paused at an intersection, out of habit as much as anything else, and then walked straight across, trying not to walk any faster than she had been for the last half hour. There was no point in signalling to anyone who might be watching that she was in the home stretch.

She rewrapped her coat more firmly, and felt paper crinkle against her. But as long as it was still there, as long as it hadn't been lost somewhere, or stolen, she didn't care if it was squashed.

The neighbourhood hadn't been deserted in the past months, as others had been – Donna could feel eyes watching her, as she stood just outside her house, unwilling to enter now that she was here – but it certainly looked abandoned. All along the street, gardens were rambling and overgrown, while windows had either been boarded up or gaped, empty, with jagged edges; doors hung off their hinges, or were missing handles and locks.

Walking here, there had been rubbish piling up in the gutters, and abandoned cars parked – if the position of the cars could be called "parked" – at random intervals along the roads, left at skewed angles, dented, blackened, missing tyres, missing much of their innards. Apparently, no one bothered driving anywhere anymore. And Donna could begin to tell why the practice had been rejected; the noise alone would be incredibly out of place, obvious enough to be heard untold blocks away. She could only imagine – with stirrings of discomfort – just how loud the arrival of the TARDIS must have been, and tried not to imagine who might have heard it.

She drew in a deep breath, and stepped forward to push open the creaking door of her home, ignoring the smashed lock. For a moment, Donna marvelled at how patient the Doctor was being, waiting for her instead of merely barging ahead; and then she saw him staring down the street, at the ground, the sky, at nothing at all. She frowned, and stepped over the threshold.

* * *

The man squinted at the screen monitoring electrical signals active throughout the city, rubbing his beard in a newly acquired nervous habit. The frozen image subject to his gaze, captured from the real-time graph flowing by on the screen to his left, presented one single line peaking high and then not reappearing again at all, showing well above the low, _normal_, results huddling miserably together at the bottom of the graph.

He frowned, and tapped at it irritably. Unsurprisingly, it didn't move.

'What are you doing?' he muttered quietly to himself and the line, trying not to draw the attention of his co-workers.

He'd almost missed it, when it had appeared. And the time since had been spent in retrieving any of the information relevant to it that he could find, and attempting to discover just what a line of that height represented. He'd found the information, tucked away deep in the manual-equivalent, and been puzzled by it. He had run a check on the system, and made sure as well as he could, with his limited knowledge, that the computer system – or the instruments from which the information came – was not malfunctioning. As far as he could tell, none of it had developed an error. None of the rudimentary diagnostics revealed a problem.

And _now_ he was just procrastinating, wishing that it had been during someone else's shift that the line had shown up. He knew this, but the knowledge didn't change anything. He didn't want to have to talk to his superiors, but they were going to want to know regardless of his personal feelings. They would need to know that an unprecedented level of technology had shown up in the city, more advanced than anything he had ever before seen on these seemingly endless screens of readings. And after that, it would be none of his business, off his shoulders, and someone else could figure out what it meant (trouble, obviously, but beyond that? Not a clue).

He breathed out, straightened his shoulders, and stood up. He pushed his chair in under the desk, and went to talk to the overseer.

* * *

Walking here, Donna had had ample opportunity to imagine what she might do when she reached her destination, dwelling pointlessly on possibilities. Stuck in her thoughts throughout, a repeating series of images probably gained from watching too much television, had been a vision of her rushing through the house frantically searching, calling out.

But now that she was here, standing only a few steps over the threshold, Donna realised that nothing of the sort was going to happen. The place was empty. She knew that there was no one there. No one for whom she could call out.

Quiet and numb, she moved forwards, further into the silent, dusty rooms of the abandoned house.

_**TBC**_


	5. Chapter 5

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing anyone recognises.**_

**A/N: Okay, okay, so it's been absolutely ages since I last updated this. Sorry. But, just a warning, a long period between updates isn't really going to be anything out of the ordinary. Writing this is going incredibly slowly, not helped because I get sidetracked, and originally came up with this fic literally years ago. I will try to finish it, though, because I do want to finish writing it. I just can't promise how _long _that might take. Both in terms of length between updates, and the slowness of the story's action.**

**Anyway. Thanks heaps to all those who reviewed, or added this fic to their story alerts.**

**Here's the next chapter (although it sort of has overtones of "filler", oops), and I hope you enjoy.**

* * *

_**Chapter Five**_

The first thing – or one of the first things, anyway, the _first_ thing was generally where the bathrooms were located – that was taught to new recruits of the Resistance, or whatever they were being called these days, was the standard routine to be followed after a mission, or indeed after any visit to outside London. Not that Gracie ever really seriously called them "missions". But civilian though the vast majority of the Resistance was, the operating procedure had some vague military overtones.

Specifically: debriefing.

It was to this now-routine event that Gracie headed once she had safely negotiated her way to the current base of the Resistance. The offices were not in truth offices, but they managed the job well enough. All that was really needed was four walls, a door, and a workspace capable of holding paperwork. Preferably a desk was also included.

In any case, the sparsely-decorated office area was where Gracie had to undergo the process known as debriefing. It was a process that was probably significantly pared down from the official military version. Of course, it wasn't as though Gracie was in any position to know what the actual military did. She didn't really care; she was only distracting herself.

Gracie counted along the doorways, absently tapping a hand against her thigh in time with the numbers. She slowed as she passed "twelve" and came to a halt by number fourteen, the office that was fourteenth in line but only the eighth in operation, and the fourth that occasionally dealt with debriefings. The others were variously filled by paperwork, rubble, or unknown objects locked securely away.

Knocking on the door of the office, Gracie waited for a second before she twisted the handle and entered the room. Closing the door behind her, she deliberately didn't hesitate on the threshold, but crossed the small room to the desk crowded with paper, and the man who sat behind it. About to sit down opposite him, the paper still hidden inside her coat rustled, crinkling, and she pulled the thick envelope out before it and the sheets within became any further creased.

Holding the plain, sealed envelope in her hands, Gracie sat. She placed the bulky envelope on the desk a moment later, and then picked up and placed on his side of the desk by the Welsh man to whom Gracie had to report.

She didn't know what was in the envelope, but it wasn't her problem anymore. Presumably the Welsh man – Jones – would know what to do with it, whoever it was from and whatever was in it.

* * *

Every room was empty, and there was not a single clue to show her, to even hint to her, where the once-inhabitants now were. She hadn't expected there to be. But she had hoped she was wrong.

Donna had drifted through the house, barely touching anything, and certainly not – as she had half-imagined – turning the place upside down in search of a sign of some sort. And there had been nothing. And now she didn't know what to do next.

So now Donna sat at the kitchen table, staring blankly across to the sink, listening to the Doctor wander around the empty house, clumping from abandoned room to deserted room and (no doubt) poking things. Or sonic-ing them. At least he wasn't bouncing, which could only be a good thing. Although on second thoughts, maybe a bit of bouncing would serve to distract her, if only so she could yell at him. It was ungrateful of the Doctor, Donna decided, not to offer himself up as a convenient target of her frustrated emotions for her to shout at.

It was creepy, she found, sitting at home like this. There was nothing out of place, the whole house as neat and tidy as though her family had only just then stepped out, and would be returning imminently. But she knew they wouldn't be coming back soon, wherever they were.

Donna had only been here for a matter of hours, and could only imagine what life was like here in these circumstances, but judging by what that nervous woman – the only person they had seen so far at a near enough distance to talk with – had said, disappearances were not uncommon. With London as it was now it seemed to Donna unlikely that anyone would just step out for a moment and leave their house empty; unlikely that someone who had disappeared would return.

It wasn't in any way logical, but the non-presence of her family felt almost natural. It was just one more piece of the situation, only adding to the atmosphere of the nightmare.

The TARDIS had landed in a London ruled over by a shadow organisation, where members of the public regularly disappeared without a single trace left behind. It was a London that had been sealed off from the world, from the rest of the country, a city whose inhabitants appeared to be nothing more or less than hostages ensuring the rest of the world's good behaviour. And if all of that was true, then _of course_ her family were missing. Why should there still be something familiar and normal and safe remaining in this city?

It wasn't logical. But it seemed to feel right, to fit in exactly with everything else that had been happening. If this was really her city then it didn't feel like it anymore. It was a distorted reflection, unreal but a match close enough for the similarities to become disturbing. Except apparently it was all too real.

Donna frowned, trying to stop thinking or at least stop that train of thought. She stared around the kitchen, looking for something to draw her attention away from the fact that London, and possibly all of Britain, was now a dictatorship and _her family were missing. _

The kitchen was clean. A single cup had been placed upside-down by the sink to dry, but it was her grandfather's and there was nothing out of the ordinary about her mother declining to wash it when he refused to either finish using it at a normal time or place it with the rest of the washing up. There were no plates lying around. No food on the table, or on the kitchen counter.

Donna slowly stood up and walked over to the fridge, opening it and looking inside. No light flicked on when she opened the door – it had been unplugged? – and it was almost entirely bare. The pantry, when she checked, was the same. But then, it had apparently been hard to find food. Donna abandoned the pantry and sat back down, staring into space as her eyes glazed over.

There was something wrong with this picture. Wasn't there? Something she was missing, or not seeing right. Something...and then the Doctor walked into the room, and Donna forgot.

* * *

Gracie opened the door of the pretending-to-be-an-office and stepped out into the corridor. The session of reporting events had been brief, her short meeting with two strangers the only anomaly in her walk through London. Jones had listened, asked appropriate questions, and considered her answers. Or Gracie thought he had, anyway; he was a little hard to read.

But that pair of weirdos seemed to have struck some sort of chord with him. A couple of questions later, Gracie had been dismissed – much as she hated that word – and he had been within a half-second of contacting someone, she thought.

Gracie shook her head, wishing slightly that if Jones had thought the two were important, he could have told her why. And then she grinned, as a man of about her own age pretending to lean casually against the wall jumped.

'_Gracie_,' he managed as he calmed. 'Don't _do_ that to me.'

'Do what, Mike?' she asked, wide-eyed and faux-innocent.

Mock-suspicious, he narrowed his eyes as they fell into step, walking in the direction of the food Gracie's stomach was strongly insisting that she obtain. 'Do what, she says? Do what? Here I am, minding my own business, when – poof – out of nowhere the door opens, startling me half to death. And then here's you, acting all innocent like you didn't know what you were doing.'

She elbowed him. 'What, so you mean to say that you weren't waiting for me?'

'Well, there may have been _some_ waiting involved...'

They walked in comfortable silence for a moment, and then in a further moment of uncomfortable non-silence as Gracie's stomach made itself heard. She blushed.

'So,' Mike began, in an obvious attempt to dispel her embarrassment. 'What _were_ you doing in there?'

'Huh? Oh. Just handing over the results of my latest – I can't call them missions, you know. Trips to the outside world, maybe?'

'Official trips, maybe. The distinguisher being important here, because I doubt that Celia's latest trip to the outside world was on orders,' he said, and then paused as a thought hit him. 'Oh, and she's asking for you.'

Gracie's eyes lit up. 'Does that mean she's managed to find-' she said, before seeing Mike shake his head.

'I don't know. She hasn't said.'

Gracie poked him in the shoulder. 'Fat lot of good you are, then. Come on!'

She roughly grabbed his arm and started to run, towing him behind her until he started to run of his own accord.

* * *

**_to be continued..._**


End file.
